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THE OVERSHADOWING QUESTION. 



STEECH 



or 



N. GEORGE W. JULIAN, 



OF I^DTAZNT^V. 



DEI.ITERED 



THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 



JAXFARY 21, 18;i. 



WASHINGTON: 

J. RIVES & GEO. A. P-A'^EY. 

REPOI. TES OF CON 

71. 



LC control 1W*« \ 

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tmp96 



027236 



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THE OVERSHADOWING QUESTION. 



The House having 
"Whole for debate- 



met as in Committee of. the 



Mr. JULIAN said: 

Mr. Speaker: Nothing is more remark- 
able than the growing tendency of legislation 
in this country to lend itself to the service 

I of capital, of great corporations, of monop- 
olies of every sort, while too often turning 
an unfriendly eye upon the people, and espe- 
cially upon the laboring poor. The cause 
of this may fairly be traced to the evil genius 
of the times, which makes the greed for sud- 
den wealth a sort of devouring passion, and 
thus naturally clutches the machinery of gov- 
ernment in the accomplishment of its pur- 
poses. This bad spirit, which has been stead- 
ily marching toward its alarming ascendency 
since the outbreak of the late civil war, writes 
itself down upon every phase of society and 
life. It breeds political corruption in the most 
gigantic and frightful forms. It whets the 
appetite for public plunder, and through the 
aggregation of capital in the hands of the 
napping and the unscrupulous it menaces the 
equal rights of the people ana che well-being 
of society. So malign a spirit must be reso- 
lutely confronted. It is no mere question of 
party politics, for it threatens the life of all 
parties, and the perpetuity of the Government 
itself. It not only invokes the saving offices 
of the preacher and the moralist, but it sum- 
nons to new duties and increased vigilance 
very man who really concerns himself for the 

Qlfare of his country. 

Mr. Speaker, I believe the evil to which I 
.ifer finds some explanation in the false teach- 
ng of political economy. According to many 
f the leading writers on this science, its fund- 



amental idea is the creation and increase of 
productive wealth. If farming on a great 
scale, carried on with the skill and appliances 
which concentrated capital can command and 
methodize, will yield greater results than the 
tillage of the soil in small homesteads and by 
ruder methods, then the system of large farm 
ing must be preferred, though it deprives mul- 
titudes of the poor of all opportunity to acquire 
homes and independence, and entails the 
appalling evils of landlordism and the whole 
brood of mischiefs with which the monopoly 
of the soil has scourged the people in every 
age of the world. So, if manufacturing on a 
grand scale, with the perfected machinery and 
cheap labor which capital can wield will turn 
out a larger product and at lower ratca than 
numerous small industries, then such manu- 
factures must be fostered, tLough the policy 
pauperizes and brutalizes thousands of human 
beings, who take rank as "operatives," and 
whose existence is thus made a curse rather 
than a blessing. Sir, I protest against such 
principles as both false and unjust. "The 
increase of wealth," says Sismondi, "is not 
the end in political economy, but its instru- 
ment in procuring the happiness of all. 'a 
has for its object man, not wealth. It " ; gards 
chiefly the producer, and strives f^.'the wel- 
fare of the whole people through' a just dis- 
tribution. It is not the object of nations to 
produce the greatest quantity of work at the 
cheapest rate." 

In the light of these broad and humane 
principles I interpret the duty of the Govern- 
ment. Its mission, within the sphere of its 
just powers, is to protect labor, the source 
of all wealth, and to seek const 




V 



being of the millions who toil. Capital can 
take care of itself. Always sagacious, sleep- 
less, and aggressive, it holds all the advantages 
in its battle with labor. The balance of power 
falls so naturally into its hands that labor has 
no opportunity to make a just bargain. The 
labor market, it has been well observed, differs 
from every other. The seller of every other 
commodity has the option to sell or not ; but 
the commodity the workingman brings is life. 
He must sell it or die. Labor, therefore, 
should not be regarded as merchandise, to be 
bought and sold, and governed entirely by the 
law of supply and demand, but as capital, and 
its human needs should always be considered. 
"The rugged face of society," says a cele- 
brated writer, "checkered with the extremes 
of affluence and want, proves that some ex- 
traordinary violence has been committed upon 
it, and calls on justice for redress. The great 
mass of the poor in all countries have become 
an hereditary race, and it is next to impossible 
for them to get out of that state of themselves. 
It ought also to be observed that this mass 
increases in all countries that are called civ- 
ilized." The proposition that the rich are 
becoming richer in our country and the poor 
becoming poorer has been vehemently denied ; 
but I cannot doubt its truth for a moment. I 
want no statistics to settle it, since the un- 
*^*ural domination of capital over labor, 
^hich, instead of being repressed by legisla- 
tion, Is systematically aided by it, clears the 
question of all dou£t. Our vitiated currency 
largely increases the coct of the chief neces- 
saries of life, and is thus a^'l-^avy tax upon 
the poor. Our system of national banking is 
an organized monopoly in the interest of capi- 
talists, demanded by no public necessity, and 
rendering no substantial service in return for 
the burdens it imposes upon the people. 

^ur tariff laws for years past, while pretend- 
ing to favor the laborer, have been framed in 
the intei°st of monopolists. The duty on 
coal, which is a necessity of life, admits of no 
defense. To taie coal is to tax the poor man's 
fire, "to tax the force of the steam-engine, to 
starve the laborer, on whose strength we 
depend for work." The duty on leather has , 
increased its cost annually about ten million 
dollars, while the consumers of boots and 
shoes have had to pay an increase of some 
fiff^pn million dollars. The duty on lumber 



has largely increased its price, and is whollj 
paid by the consumer. The duties on wool 
salt, and pig iron, impose heavy burdens upon 
the poor, and, like the other duties named, can 
scarcely be defended, even granting the prin- 
ciple of protection to be sound. This legis- 
lative discrimination in favor of the richer and 
more favored ranks in society, and against the 
laboring and producing masses, ought to cease. 
Instead of being loaded down with burdens 
and exactions for the aggrandizement of a fewj 
they should share the unstinted favor of the 
Government. 

It is estimated by writers on public economy 
that four fifths of the people of a nation are 
employed by agriculture. Probably this esti- 
mate is too large. But it will be safe to say that 
in our own country at least one half of those 
engaged in industrial occupations are employed 
in agricultural pursuits j and they contribute 
to the gross value of national production three 
billions two hundred and eighty-two million 
dollars. The total number of those engaged 
in manufactures, including railway service 
and the fisheries, is seven hundred and thirty 
thousand, and they produce in value nine hun- 
dred and forty million and fifty thousand dol- 
lars. The estimated number of those engaged 
in mechanical pursuits is one million, yielding 
a product of one thousand million dollars. If 
we remember that the gross annual product 
of the country is only six billions eight hun- 
dred and twenty-five million dollars, and that, 
according to careful official estimates, only 
ten millions of our population are in receipt 
of income, or, in other words, contribute any 
thing to the increase of our aggregate wealth, 
we shall see what a stupendous service is ren- 
dered to the country by the 'great indns^p* 
I Lave mentioned. 

These are the- vital interests of the nation j 
and instead of being crippled and discouraged 
by the policy to which I have referred, they 
should be studiously fostered by just and equal 
laws. Under the influence of this policy mul 
titudes, stimulated by the hope of imir-ediafc 
wealth, are abandoning productive pursuit 
and seeking employments connected with sot 
form of speculation or traffic. The popula' 
of our great cities and towns, instead of n 
forcing the "rural districts," is unduly 
creasing; and so is the number of buih 
devoted to banking, brokerage, insurant 



kindred projects. Not production, but tr 
is the order of the day. The enhanced cost of 
the instruments requisite for the prosecution 
of industrial pursuits, and the higher price of 
fuel, food, and clothing, naturally hinder the 
accumulation of capital sufficient to enable the 
man of small means to establish himself as 
an independent producer. This necessarily 
subordinates labor more and more to capital, 
and concentrates the business of manufactur- 
ing aud exchanging into large establishments, 
while working the destruction of thousands of 
smaller ones. 

Of course the tendency of all this is to render 
the many dependent upon the few for the 
means of their livelihood rather than upon 
themselves, and u to divide society into two 
classes ; capitalists who own everything, and 
hands who own nothing but depend entirely 
on the capital class." That the policy of the 
Government, to a fearful extent, evokes and 
aggravates these evils can scarcely be ques- 
tioned ; and that that policy results from the 
ugly fact that the laboring and producing 
classes are unrepresented in the Government, 
save by the non-producers and traffickers is, 
I think, equally clear. It illustrates the evils 
of class legislation, and calls on the people 
to apply the remedy. li The unproductives," 
says Commissioner Wells, "being the chief 
makers of the laws and institutions for the 
protection of labor and ingenuity, the increase 
of production and the exchange and transfer 
of property, they shape all their devices so 
cunningly, and work them so cleverly, that 
they, the non-producers, continue to grow rich 
faster than the producers. Whoever at this 
day watches the subject and course of legis- 
lation, and appreciates the spirit of the laws, 
marmot fail to perceive how more and more 
the idea of the iransjt; cr tiie auxins product 
of society, and the creation of facilities for it, 
available to the cunning and the quick as 
against the dull and slow, has come to per- 
vade the whole fabric of that which we call 
Government ; and how large a number of the 
most progressive mind3 of the nation have been 
ed to accept as a fundamental truth in polit- 
ical doctrine, that the best way to take care of 
the many is to commence by taking care of 
the few ; that all which is necessary to secure 
the well-being of the workman is to provide a 
eatisfaetory rate of profit for his employer." 



Sir, I rejoice that facts like these are at last 
making their powerful appeal to the productive 
classes in every section of our country, and that 
the workingmen of all civilized lands are wak- 
ing up to a sense of their bondage to capital. 
Were they to continue much longer to slumber 
in the presence of the great dangers which 
thicken about their future and threaten to swal- 
low them up, I should despair of their eman- 
cipation. The organized struggle for their 
rights has fairly begun. Eight-hour agitations, 
trades unions, cooperative movements, labor- 
reform organizations, and the international as- 
sociation of the workingmen, on both sides of 
the Atlantic, in the maintenance of their rights, 
are so many unmistakable signs of a better 
dispensation ; but all these agencies will fail 
of their purpose, or prove palliatives at best, 
if they do not necessitate and include such 
organized political action as shall compel the 
governing power to respect their will. That 
this action will make mistakes, and abuse its 
power when obtained, is very probable. That 
it will sometimes employ questionable methods, 
and suffer the mischiefs of bad leadership may 
be taken for granted ; but that in the end it 
will restore labor and capital to their just rel- 
ative basis is as true as democracy itself. The 
labor question, indeed, is the natural suc- 
cessor and logical sequence of the slavery 
question. It is, in fact, the same question 
in another form, since the practical ownership 
of labor by capital necessarily itffol**** tiie 
ownership of the laborer himself 

But the subservience of *«* legislation to 
individual and corporal wealth, and its prac- 
tical unfriendliness to the producing classes, 
are most strikingly exhibited in the land pol- 
icy of the Government. In the endeavor to 
make this proposition clear I ask preliminary 
attention to the following considerations : 

First, that it is the unquestionable duty of 
the Government to make its lands as productive 
as possible. It has no right to hold back irorn 
settlement and tillage vast tracts of territory 
fitted for agriculture, which its own landless 
citizens desire to convert into improved home- 
steads and make tributary to the public wealth. 
Such a policy is only less recreaut than the 
wholesale destruction by law of productive 
wealth already drawn from the soil by the hand 
of industry. 

Second, that in order to secure homes for 






6 



the largest number, and at the same time 
reach the maximum of production, the Govern- 
ment should parcel out its lands in homesteads 
of moderate size, and stimulate industry and 
thrift by making the land-owner and the plow- 
holder the same person. ' ' A small proprietor," 
says Adam Smith, " who knows every part of 
his little territory, views it with all the affection 
which property, especially small property, nat- 
urally inspires, and who, upon that account, 
takes pleasure not only in cultivating but adorn- 
ing it, is generally, of all improvers, the most 
industrious, the most intelligent, and the most 
successful." 

Third, that this policy supplies the strong- 
est bond of Union between the citizen and the 
State, and is absolutely necessary in a com- 
monwealth. Feudalism and popular liberty 
are totally irreconcilable. The strength of a 
republic depends upon the virtue and intelli- 
gence of each citizen, and his readiness to 
defend it in time of danger ; and these safe- 
guards are best secured by multiplying the 
number of those who own and till the soil, 
and whose stake in society thus makes sure 
their allegiance. 

Keeping in remembrance these fundamental 
principles, which, from the beginning, should 
have guided and inspired the Government in 
the management of our vast public domain, 
let me rapidly survey its actual policy, and 
+ hus exhibit its fatal departure from these prin- 
ciple The entire aggregate of lands sold by 
the uoverijnent since its formation is over one 
hundred and si*** million acres. Of this total 
amount I believe it w<*ild be safe to estimate 
that fully one half, at the date of its sale, passed 
into the hands of non-resident owners for specu- 
lative purposes. Of course, to whatever extent 
the people's patrimony was thus locked up by 
monopolists, productive wealth was hindered, 
and settlers deprived of homes; and wlrerr, 
from time to time, the lands were sold, the 
enha >."ed price was a cruel wrong to the poor, 
in which the Government was an equal part- 
ner with the speculator, but without profit. 
More than thirty million acres yet remain in 
the hands of speculators, being enough to 
sake one hundred and eighty-seven thousand 
five hundred homesteads, of one hundred and 
sixty acres each. If these thirty millions had 
been sold to actual settlers, and dedicated to 
v e raising of corn, wheat, and c4her products, 



they would have been yielding, at the low esti- 
mate often dollars per acre, an annual profit 
of three hundred million dollars, while furnish- 
ing homes for the multitudes who have been 
driven to hunt them in the more distant front- 
ier, and at the cost of greater privations and 
dangers. This policy is thus seen to be as 
financially stupid as it is flagrantly unjust. In 
California two men own a frontage on the San 
Joaquin river of forty miles in extent, .while 
two other speculators have bought Govern- 
ment lands amounting to five hundred thou- 
sand acres. I give these as specimen cases. 
To realize the mischief of these monopolies it 
it should be remembered that the tracts thus 
appropriated are to be found chiefly in the 
valleys, and fringing the bays and rivers, and 
are the choice lands of the State. Very intel- 
ligent gentlemen in that State assure me that 
but for this evil, reenforced by railway monop- 
oly, California to-day, instead of containing 
half a million, would boast a million of peo- 
ple. The blasting effects of such a policy are 
so startling that if written down in figures they 
would seem utterly incredible. A few capi- 
talists in that State have also purchased vast 
bodies of choice timbered land in Washington 
Territory, and are realizing large fortunes by 
shipping its timber to San Francisco and else- 
where, while inflicting widespread and irre- 
parable mischief upon the Territory. 

Every gentleman from the States of the 
Northwest knows how those States have been 
scourged by this policy, while in the land 
States of the South, outside of the towns and 
cities, not one man in ten is a land-owner. It 
has wrought upon the country evils more fear- 
ful and enduring than those of war, pestilence, 
or famine ; and yet, through all the long years 
of its mad ascendency, Congress, by a simple 
enactment lik* &** h:n --• •• *W^«g M this 
House, has had the power to end it forever. 
An act declaring that no more of the public 
domain shall be sold except as provided in t 
preemption and homestead Jaws, was all tl 
was needed to stay the ravages of. this gn 
national curse, and is all that is now wan! 
to avert its recurrence in new and still m 
frightful forms in the future. The woiki 
men and pioneer settlers of the country h 
repeatedly petitioned Congress to enact s 
a law ; but their prayes-has been deniec 
every instance, while their rights have b 



trampled down in the interest of monopolists 
whose wishes have been promptly coined into 
law. The homestead act fails to meet the 
case. The right of the settler to land free of 
cost is of far less consequence than the reser- 
vation of the public domain for settlers only, 
unobstructed in their right of selection. The 
homestead law is only a step in the right direc- 
tion ; for while it offers homes to the poor, it 
does this subject to the preferred right of the 
speculator to seize and appropriate the choice 
lands in large tracts, and thus drive the pio- 
neer further into the wilderness and on to less 
desirable lands. 

Congress should correct this great evil at 
once. The President emphatically reccfmmends 
it, and the Republican party should no longer 
hesitate in perfecting its record, and making 
good its boasted friendship for the landless 
poor. The political platforms of all parties, 
during the past few years, have taken the same 
ground ; and in this respect have only reflected 
the earnest and almost unanimous wishes of 
the people. 

Mr. Speaker, I pass to another class of facts, 
and still more alarming to every man who will 
give the subject his attention. Congress has 
granted lands in aid of railways and other 
works of internal improvement amounting to 
over two hundred million acres. That these 
grants have done good service in the settle- 
ment and development of the country I do not 
doubt. This is not the point I am now con- 
sidering, and is one aspect only of the subject. 
The fact to be emphasized is, that lands just 
about equal in area to the original thirteen 
States of the Union have been surrendered to 
corporations, without any conditions or restric- 
tions securing the rights of settlers. They may 
sell these lands for just such price as they 
please, or hoiti them back from sale altogether 
for a quarter of a century, or lease them for 
ninety-nine years. The public lands belong to 
the people ; but Congress abdicates their sov- 
ereignty over a territory large enough for an 
empire, in the interest of great corporations 
which thus install a most gigantic and over- 
shadowing system of feudalism in our Repub- 
lic, whose founders believed they had escaped 
the monarchical principles of the Old World. 

The original Northern Pacific railroad bill 
ilone granted forty- seven million acres. The 
supplementary act of last session increased the 



grant eleven millions, making a total of fifty- 
eight million acres granted to one great corpo- 
ration ; and, as if to demonstrate the complete 
subserviency of both branches of Congress to 
the wishes of this company, every proposition 
looking to the rights of pioneer settlers, or in 
any way restrictive of the powers of the cor- 
poration, was successively voted down by strong 
majorities. Even the right of other roads to 
connect with this line was impudently denied. 
And this nefarious policy seems now only fairly 
launched. The Senate at its last session passed, 
in all, twenty land-grant bills, calling for the 
enormous aggregate of over one hundred and 
sixteen million acres, according to careful esti- 
mates made by the Commissioner of the Gen- 
eral Land Office. Two of these bills only have 
gone through the House, covering more than 
fifty-nine million acres. There are yet pend- 
ing in the Senate some thirty-seven bills, call- 
ing for the further quantity of over one hundred 
and nineteen million acres; and some of these 
measures exhibit an audacity of recklessness 
so marvelous and a contempt for the rights 
of the people so surpassing, that I find it diffi- 
cult to credit the legislative record. Among 
them is a bill to encourage the establishment 
of a line of steamships for the conveyance nf 
our mails to European ports and ports) 
India and China, and for promoting immi 
tion from Europe to the southern States^ 
calls for more than nineteen million acres; 
which land scrip is to be issued to the i 
States named in the bill in certtui spec 
proportions; and fourteen million a«-es uj 
amount granted are to be gobbled up in 
land States of the South from the unsold pi 
lands of that section, which have been so w: 
dedicated to homestead settlement only b^ 
landless poor, white and colored. 

A twin-brother of this project, and a mil 
of legislative impudence, has been introd 
in this body at the present session. The 
poration which it creates is at once a chart 
ocean carrier and a chartered land proprij 
The huge monopoly thus inaugurated, j 
destroying individual commercial enter 
under the false pretense of reestabli? 
American commerce, would seize in$* 
millions of acres of selected pub^ 
different sections of the count*- 
back from settlement id ' ' 
purposes. The e^*' 



8 



pending in this House is not nearly so formi- 
dable as that of the Senate, nor have I ascer- 
tained how much land they would require; but 
it would probably be safe to estimate that the 
bills yet pending in both Houses, if enacted 
into laws, would absorb fully one hundred and 
fifty million acres. If we remember that our 
entire public domain, outside of Alaska, is 
only about one thousand million acres, it will 
not be difficult to see, in the figures I have 
given, the extent of the conspiracy to rob the 
poor of this and coming generations of their 
rightful inheritance in the public domain, and to 
crush and subjugate the producing and labor- 
ing masses through the power of organized 
capital. The hope of the country is in the 
popular branch of Congress; for the Senate, 
judged by its action at the last session, seems 
entirely beyond the reach of the people. 

Sir, this whole policy should be abandoned 
absolutely; or, if continued under any cir- 
cumstances, it should be confined to works of 
clearly national character and importance, 
connecting important distant points, and pass- 
ing over a thinly-settled region of country ; and 
the lands appropriated should not pass into 
the hands of any corporation, but be sold and 
conveyed directly to actual settlers, in limited 
quantities, and at such moderate price as to 
bring them within the reach of those who 
actually need them for homes. Nothing short 
.nf such restrictions can prevent the establish- 
ment o/ a landed aristocracy in our midst, 
-o-orse even than that of the Russian and Hun- 
garian nobles, or the old plantation lords of 
the South. 

Mr. Speaker, the readiness of the Govern- 
ment to espouse the cause of monopolists and 
corporations is not less forcibly illustrated in 
the management of our Indian reservations 
during the past eight or nine years. These 
reservations, when the Indians desire to part 
with their title, are no longer conveyed directly 
k> the United States, and thus made subject 
•,o the control of Congress, as other public 
ands, but are sold by treaty to railroad cor- 
porations, or to individual monopolists, in 
#*** disregard of the rights of settlers under 
he preemption and homestead laws, and with- 
«ray • warv an t whatever in the Constitution 
T -nted Slates, which gives to Congress 
r to dispose of and manage the 



As I have shown on other occasions, mil- 
lions of acres have thus fallen into the grasp 
of monopolists, which should have been the 
free offering of the Government to our home- 
less pioneers. The most remarkable of these 
transactions is the late treaty with the Chero- 
kee Indians, by virtue of which a territory fifty 
miles long, and twenty-five miles wide, contain- 
ing eight hundred thousand acres, was sold to 
James F. Joy for the price of one dollar per 
acre. The right which these Indians had in 
these lands was that of occupancy only, and 
this they had abandoned and forfeited by the 
attempted conveyance of it to the confederate 
States in 1861. The lands were thenceforward 
subject to preemption and settlement precisely 
as all other public lands, nor did the Chero- 
kees manifest any disposition to occupy them, 
or any hostility to their settlement by our citi- 
zens. They had no desire whatever to convey 
the lands to any party save the United States, 
and their sole aim was to recover the value of 
their reservation, which they had vainly sought 
to convey to the public enemy. At the date of 
this treaty more than one thousand families 
were on the land as actual settlers, and there 
are now thirty-five hundred, or about eighteen 
thousand settlers, occupying the counties of 
Bourbon, Crawford, and Cherokee. 

Two thirds of the heads of these families are 
honorably-discharged soldiers, who have in 
good faith settled upon these lands under the 
preemption and homestead laws, as they had 
the right to do, made valuable improvements, 
and expended their spare means in securing 
for themselves comfortable homes. All these 
people, save those on the land at the date of 
this pretended treaty, are at the mercy of Joy. 
He is their potentate and king. As the head 
of a railroad which he is building through their 
lands, and in doing which he affects to dread 
the hostility of the settlers, he has called on 
the Governor of Kansas for military aid; and 
Federal soldiers are now quartered on these 
settlers, at the instigation of the Governor; w 
acted in the matter on his own responsibilit 
and not by authority of law. To these wron 
and outrages, perpetrated in the interest of 
single monopolist and his retainers, must ] 
added the fact that the State of Kansas los 
the sixteenth and thirty-sixth sections of the 
lauds, to which she was rightfully entitled f 
educational purposes, while the United Stat 



9 



lose the coal beds extending over consider- 
able portions of the territory, and valued at 
millions of dollars. The total value of the 
land, including these minerals and the. im- 
provements of the settlers, at a moderate esti- 
mate, may be set down at ten million dollars. 
So much for one single scheme of spoliation, 
carried on by the authority of the Government 
against its own loyal citizens, whose hard toil 
is adding to the public wealth, and whose valor 
helped to save the nation in its conflict with 
rebels. The treaty- making power, even grant- 
ing the title of the Indians, had no more right 
to convey these lands to Joy than had Congress 
to usurp the functions of the Executive. The 
whole proceeding is void under the Constitution 
of the United States, and will be so declared 
by the Federal courts, unless they too, like the 
manipulators of this treaty, shall lend them- 
selves to the base uses of railroad corporations 
and the Indian ring. Sir, this transaction has 
no parallel, save in another treaty, not yet rati- 
fied, by which a tract of country, belonging to 
the Osage Indians, two hundred and fifty miles 
long and fifty miles wide, and containing 
eight million acres, was sold to Sturgis, another 
railway baron, at the rate of nineteen cents 
per acre, to be paid in annual installments, 
during a period of fifteen years, in the bonds 
of his company. 

Mr. Speaker, equally startling, not to say 
monstrous, has been the conduct of the Gov- 
ernment in dealing with its swamp and over- 
flowed lands. The lobby which pressed the 
passage of the act of 1850, granting such lands 
to the States, urged that they were of little 
value, and that the General Government could 
not afford the expense of reclaiming them; 
but the truth is that, to a very large extent, they 
are the richest lands in the nation, and that 
the cost cf their reclamation is no greater than 
that of other agricultural lands. It was like- 
wise .urged that the States could better be 
trusted with the work than the General Gov- 
ernment ; but time has fully demonstrated to 
the contrary, and very sadly to the nation's 
cost. The well-understood machinery of the 
General Land Office, available to individual 
energy and enterprise, afforded the best and 
only means of solving the swamp-land problem. 
No legislation ha3 ever been more disastrous 
to the country, and if the act of 1850 was not 
framed in the interest of organized thievir 



and plunder, then its entire administration is 
so wholly out of joint with the law itself that 
an honest man is hopelessly puzzled in the 
attempt to account for it as an accident. 

The act, in failing to give any definition of 
the phrase "swamp and overflowed land," 
has supplied a perpetual temptation to mer- 
cenary men and corrupt officials to pervert 
it to base ends. Instead of submitting the 
character of the land in dispute to the regis- 
ter and receiver of the local land office, and 
investing them with the power to compel the 
attendance of witnesses, it leaves the question 
to be decided by the surveyor general, who 
has no judicial power, and is generally en- 
grossed and often overwhelmed with his own 
proper duties. His office may be hundreds 
of miles from the lands in controversy, thus 
causing great and needless expense to the 
poor settlers, who are required to attend, 
with their witnesses, at the hearing, which is 
frequently appointed at a season of the year 
rendering it a great hardship if not an impos- 
sibility to attend. 

Although the surveyor general is an officer 
of the United States, it practically happens 
that local and State influences completely over- 
ride the rights of the General Government. 
The lands are surveyed and their character 
settled soon after some unusual overflow, or in 
a season of great rains ; or large bodies are 
declared swamp because small portions of them 
only are really so. By such method? f^ in0 
frightful abuses are the order of ' i3 day, work- 
ing the most shameful ini— tice to honest set ' 
tiers, and fatally c^H acting the settlement 
and developrooat of the country.. One hundred 
thousand acres of land in one land district, and 
situate in different localities near the summit of 
the Sierra Nevada mountains, some five to si/: 
thousand feet above the level of the sea, are 
now claimed by speculators as swamp, while 
it is shown by the sworn statements of rr^ 
of the settlers on these lands that j> 
ally require irrigation to make,.** 
ble in the raising of either b<> 
of these settlers who *• 
mountain lands fr" 
improvement? 
perfect ? r 
with 



10 



been selected as swamp, and over forty-five 
millions patented, being nearly double the 
quantity patented to railroads, and a very large 
proportion of which is dry land, and among 
the very best which the Government owned. 
The work of spoliation is still in full blast, and 
nothing can arrest it but an act of Congress so 
defining swamp and overflowed lands as to 
make impossible the outrages to which I have 
referred ; outrages so cunningly planned and 
so infernally prosecuted as to make quite re-, 
spectable the average performances of profes- 
sional pickpockets and thieves. 

Mr. Speaker, the grants made by Congress 
for educational purposes may fairly be classed 
with the profligate legislation to which I have 
referred. Their aggregate for common schools, 
universities, and agricultural colleges is more 
than seventy-eight million acres. No condi- 
tions were prescribed to prevent the monopoly 
of this vast domain, or the frightful maladmin- 
istration of it by the States which has actually 
taken place. In some of them the school 
fund has totally disappeared. But by far the 
worst of these educational enactments is the 
agricultural college act of 1862. Its grant of 
thirty thousand acres of land for each Senator 
and Representative in Congress absorbs nearly 
ten millions, which are handed over to the 
cause of monopoly. The States having public 
lands within their borders will hold back from 
e the shares to which they are entitled in 
rise in price, thus obstructing the 
neiit i >%;_.„> coun t r y an( j placing burdens 
on the landless po^ . whiie the States having 
no public lands are entity to scrip represent- 
ing their proportions, which a thrown upon 
the market, and has generally sold at about 
fifty per cent, less than its par value. In some 
instances its price has gone far below this; so 
that while it fails to supply a fund with which 
to build colleges, it enables speculators to 
appropriate great bodies of the public domain 
kt a very low rate, as if its settlement and 
-^e were an unprofitable or an unmanly 
^ent, or a barbarian practice which the 
'• should discourage. 

" v ht hundred and eighty-four 

een located with this 

"omia alone j and I 

"°^sion Congress 

" f a noted 

*hou- 



ofdei 



sand acres so located, which act, by way of 
legislative irony, was entitled "A bill amend- 
atory of an act to protect the rights of settlers 
upon the public lands of the United States/' 
Of the motives and purposes of the men who 
originated and carried the act of 1862 I have 
nothing to say ; but the law itself is as vicious 
and mischievous as if it had been studiously 
planned as a conspiracy against the public 
welfare. No man can defend it; and it ought 
to have been entitled "A bill to encourage the 
monopoly of the nation's lands, to hinder the 
cause of productive wealth, and to multiply 
the hardships of our pioneers, under the false 
pretense of aiding the cause of general educa- 
tion." Kindred observations apply to our 
half-breed Indian scrip, which was to be issued 
to the Sioux Indians in person, but, by some 
black art, is now located in violation of this 
requirement. The whole amount of this scrip 
is nearly three hundred and twenty- one thou- 
sand acres, while scrip covering over seventy- 
seven thousand acres has been issued to the 
Chippewa Indians. 

Our legislation respecting military bounty 
lands belongs to the same class. More than 
seventy- three million acres in all have been 
appropriated for military and naval purposes, 
the effect of which has been far more ruinous 
to the prosperity of the country than beneficial 
to the soldier and seaman. The warrants 
issued for the lands granted were to be located 
only by the soldier. It was soon provided, how- 
ever, that he might locate them by an agent, 
and finally they were made assignable. The 
Commissioner of the General Land Office says 
that of the Mexican war bounty land warrants 
the records of his office show that not one in 
five hundred of those issued and placed in the 
hands of the soldiers or their heirs has been 
located by them, or for their use ; and he esti- 
mates that not to exceed ten per cent, of them 
have been used by preemptors as assignees in 
payment for actual settlement, the remainder 
having gone into the clutches of the speculator. 
While the soldier was cheated out of his war- 
rant, or sold it at a very low rate, the public 
domain, which should have been free to him 
and to all other poor men, has been absorbed 
by monopolists, who have fixed upon it such 
tariff as they could exact from those in search 
of homes. And yet, in the face of these unfor- 
tunate but very instructive facts, persistent 



11 



attempts have beer, made in Congress for years 
past to re'enact the same mischievous folly. 
Several bills are now pending in this House 
providing bounty lands for the soldiers of 
the late civil war, one of which ci>,lls for one 
hundred and sixty acres for each soldier who 
served twelve months. The number of these, 
according to careful official estimates of the 
War Department, is at least two millions, ex- 
clusive of deserters, those who paid commu- 
tation, and those dishonorably discharged. 
Multiplying this by one hundred and sixty, we 
have the aggregate of three hundred and twenty 
million acres of land. It is by far the most 
appalling scheme of spoliation of which I have 
any knowledge, calling for about one third of 
the remaining public domain, exclusive of our 
Russian possessions. The warrants issued for 
these lands, when thrown upon the market, 
would probably sell as low as a quarter of a 
dollar per acre, or less : a pitiful mockeryof 
the soldier, while the preemption and home- 
stead laws would be practically nullified, and 
curses innumerable lavished upon coming gen- 
erations. It would make the plunder of the 
people a national institution, and breed an 
army of vampires to prey upon their life. Sir, 
I need hardly say that the soldier asks for 
no such legislation ; but he does ask that the 
public lands shall no longer be squandered by 
speculators, but set apart for those only who 
desire them for homes. 

Like considerations apply, with almost equal 
force, to another pending measure, providing 
that every honorably discharged soldier and sea- 
man who served ninety days in the late war for 
the Union may select one hundred and sixty 
acres of the public domain, and receive a patent 
therefor at the end of five years, without settle- 
ment. If all of our soldiers and sailors should 
apply for land, as they would have every reason 
to do, since they could get it for the asking, 
the measure would absorb more than three 
hundred and fifty million acres. If one half 
only should apply, it would require every acre 
of land which the Government could survey 
within the next twenty-nine years, at the rate 
our surveys are progressing, thus totally block- 
ing up the general march of civilization and 
settlement now in progress, and consigning 
the public domain to solitude; while the sol- 
dier, on receiving his patent, would be under 
no obligation to settle on his land, and might 



sell it to the shark who would be lying in wait 
to take advantage of his poverty in driving a 
bargain. The bounty which the 'soldier needs 
and deserves should be. paid in money, and be 
graded iu amount according to his term of 
service ; or if land is to be given him, let him 
have it under the homestead law, with the 
discrimination in his favor that his term of ser- 
vice, whether long or short, shall be counted 
as part of the five years' settlement now pre- 
scribed by law. 

But the Government has not only thus favored 
the squandering of the people's rightful patri- 
mony, but in some instances it has shown 
itself positively unfriendly to the producing 
classes, and especially to that grand army of 
occupation, the pioneer settlers. I give two 
notable examples. In the year 1864 Con- 
gress granted to the State of California the 
famous Yosemite valley, in perpetual reserva- 
tion as a pleasure-ground and spectacle of 
wonder. But it turned out that, prior to the 
grant, Hutchiugs and Lamon, two enterpris- 
ing settlers, had selected homes in the valley 
under the preemption laws, built their cabins, 
planted orchards and vineyards, and expended 
some thousands of dollars in making them- 
selves comfortable, while braving great hard- 
ships and privations in this remote and inac- 
cessible region. California, however, having 
accepted the grant, caused an ejectment to be 
brought against these settlers, who appeals? 
for protection to the Legislature ; an' 1 -- 
was passed, subject to its rating., en ny Con- 
gress, reserving to each of fcliem. one hundreG 
and sixty acres, including their improvements, 
and reserving to the State the right to con- 
struct bridges, avenues, and paths over the 
preemptions, so that the public use of the valley 
could not be obstructed. 

Early in the present Congress a bill was 
introduced in this body confirming the act 
referred to, and thus redeeming the pledge of 
the nation, embodied in the preemption law r 
that their homes should be secured to theox 
on compliance with its prescribed conditions^ 
They were the only preemptors in the valley, 
and the simple, naked question presented bj? 
the bill was whether the Government would 
maintain its plighted faith. The nation recog- 
nizes the sacredness of contracts. It will not 
allow any law to be passed impairing their 
obligation, and as between individuals com- 



vwr 



Mthi 



12 



pels their performance. Should it then delib- 
erately violate its own contract with these 
pioneers, and thus proclaim its faithlessness 
to all settlers? The Ho#se of Representatives, 
on the 2d day of last July, answered this 
question in the' affirmative. By its recorded 
vote of one hundred and seven against thirty- 
one, it declared that Hutchings and Lamon 
should be driven from their homes; and I 
must say that I know of no vote since the 
passage of the fugitive slave act of 1850 which 
calls more loudly for general and unhesitating 
reprobation. It insults our hardy pioneers, 
who have encountered wild beasts and the 
scalping-knife of the Indian in exploring our 
distant borders and extending the march of 
civilization, by telling them they are outlaws 
on the public domain. 

It was said in the debate on this bill that 
these settlers might start "lager saloons, corn- 
fields, and cow-yards" on their premises ; but 
surely that fact, should it happen, ought not 
to deprive them of their rights as settlers, nor 
could it possibly interfere with the public use 
of a valley containing over thirty-six thousand 
acres. Indeed, I think it might have been far 
wiser to carve it up into small homesteads, 
occupied by happy families, decorated by 
orchards, gardens, and meadows, with a neat 
little post town in their midst, and churches and 
school-houses crowning all ; but in any event 
'he claims of these settlers should have been 
-o/tred. The marvelous beauty of this 
valley c;- , t -«» nothing whatever to do with 
the right of preemption as a legal principle, 
and is evidently used as a m«re pretext. The 
truth is, as I have reason to believe, that 
wealthy capitalists in California, whose power 
is sometimes felt in Washington, have their 
eye on this valley. They are already a corpor- 
ation in embryo for the purpose of obtaining 
a long lease of it, and building a magnificent 
hotel within its walls ; and a part of their enter- 
prise will probably be the construction of a 
railroad, with Government aid, as near to the 
valley as practicable. Their animating pur- 
pose is to enrich themselves by levying tribute 
upon gentlemen of elegant leisure, rich tour- 
ists, and such others as can afford to endure 
their exactions, while such plebeians as Hutch- 
ings and Lamon will have to hunt other and less 
aristocratic pleasure-grounds. But whether I 
am right or not in these opinions, the defeat 



of the bill referred to was a flagrant wrong to 
these settlers. It was the complete miscar- 
riage of justice. It can scarcely be necessary 
to add that the same measure had been twice 
reported adversely in the Senate, where it 
found even less favor than in the House. 

But I am very sorry to say, Mr. Speaker, 
that the Federal judiciary has at last made 
common cause with Congress against the rights 
of our pioneer settlers. The case to which 
I now refer arose between Whitney, a pre- 
emptor of a quarter section of land included in 
the famous Spanish grant known as the Soscol 
Ranch, in California, and which the Supreme 
Court of the United States had declared invalid, 
and General Frisbie, a noted monopolist, who 
claimed title to a portion of said ranch, in- 
cluding Whitney's claim, under an act of Con- 
gress passed chiefly through his agency. The 
local land office in California decided the case 
in favor of Frisbie ; but, on appeal to the Gen- 
eral Land Office, Whitney's preemption was 
sustained. Frisbie then prevailed on the Sec- 
retary of the Interior to ask the opinion of the 
Attorney General on the question of law in- 
volved, which was the right of preemption, the 
facts being admitted. The Attorney General 
gave his opinion to the effect that a settler 
under the preemption laws acquires no vested 
interest in the land he occupies by virtue of his 
settlement, and can acquire no such interest 
till he has taken all the legal steps necessary 
to perfect an entrance in the Land Office, being 
in the mean time a mere tenant at will, who 
may be ejected by the Government at any mo- 
ment in favor of another party. This opin- 
ion being accepted as law by the Interior De- 
partment, Whitney prosecuted his claim against 
Frisbie in the supreme court of the District of 
Columbia, which sustained his preemption as 
valid. Frisbie thereupon appealed^ths case to 
the Supreme Court of the United States, which, 
in March last, decided it in his favor, fully 
affirming the doctrine of the Attorney General 
that settlers on the public lands under the pre- 
emption laws have no rights which the Gov- 
ernment is bound to respect. 

Sir, a bad law may sometimes be explained 
on the ground of haste, or surprise ; but here 
we have the deliberate judgment of the high- 
est court in the Union that where the preemp- 
tion law invites settlers on to the public lands, 
and offers them homes on certain prescribed 



13 



conditions, with which they are willing and 
anxious to comply, the Government may write 
itself down a liar before the nation by robbing 
them of the lands they have selected, and the 
money and labor expended upon them in good 
faith. And this is the unanimous opinion of 
the court. It totally ignores the strong and 
pointed authorities which the whole country 
has understood to have settled the law to the 
contrary, and the whole policy of the Govern- 
ment during the past forty years; and who- 
ever will read it carefully in the light of the 
facts of the case will find that it elaborately 
pettifogs the cause of the monopolist from the 
beginning to the end. 

Sir, I brand it as the Dred Scott decision 
of the American pioneer. It threatens the 
complete overthrow of the land policy of the 
Government, and the establishment of the 
vicious principle that settlers on the public 
domain are mere trespassers, with whom no 
terms are to be kept. It arrays the Govern- 
ment against the poor man in his hard struggle 
for a home, and makes it the ally of monopo- 
lists, who have at last heard their triumph pro- 
claimed from the supreme bench. It strikes 
at the nation's well-being, if not its life ; for 
we are largely indebted to the wisdom and 
justice of our policy, as embodied in the pre- 
emption and homestead laws, for our marvel- 
ous progress as a people, and for the place we 
hold among the other nations of the world. 
It signalizes the ugly epoch we have reached 
in the domination of capital over labor, and 
the danger which menaces the very principle 
of democracy. It strikes at the honor of the 
nation, which, as I have said elsewhere, can 
as innocently repudiate the debt it incurred 
in saving its own life as to violate its plighted 
faith to ou-r pioneers that they shall have homes 
on the public domain on conditions which are 
honestly accepted and complied with on their 
part. They should be the favorites of the 
nation. The preemption law should not be 
construed strictly against them, like a penal 
statute, but liberally, in furtherance of the 
great and manifest object. "The pioneer," 
says the President in his late message, " who 
incurs the dangers and privations of a frontier 
life, and thus aids in laying the foundation of 
new Commonwealths, renders a signal service 
to his country, and is entitled to its special 
favor and protection." 



Mr. Speaker, a distinguished Englishman 
and well-known friend of English workingmen 
who has recently been among us, took occasion 
to exhort the workingmen of our own country 
against the spirit of discontent, pointing them 
to our cheap lands, our fair wages for work, 
and the favorable condition of our poorer 
classes generally, while deprecating any spe- 
cial effort looking to their future welfare. Sir, 
if he had duly considered the facts I have pre- 
sented I am sure he would have tendered no 
such counsel. Instructed by the state of affairs 
in his own country, he would have warned us 
against the very evils which make the social 
condition of England so frightful a problem, 
and which can only be averted here by sound- 
ing the cry of danger, and laying hold of the 
means of escape before it shall be too late. 
True, the condition of the working people of 
England and the United States is at present 
very different. The old feudal system of Wil- 
liam the Conqueror crushes England to-day. 
The military features of the system, with the 
royal prerogative, have disappeared, and three 
fourths of her people are not now slaves, as 
was the fact a few centuries ago ; but the prin- 
ciple of land monopoly inaugurated by that 
system is more powerful for evil now than ever 
before. 

About the middle of the last century there 
were three hundred and seventy-four thousand 
land-holders in England, while now she h '^ J 
only thirty thousand. The niwnk-i-'is still 
decreasing. One half of *>ci soil is owned by 
one hundred and £rty persons, and nineteen 
and a half millions of acres in Scotland are 
owned by twelve proprietors. These land- 
owners have very properly been styled sover- 
eign. They may consign a whole county to 
the solitude of a deer forest, or clear a large 
territory of its population as they would ex- 
terminate vermin. Fifteen thousand people, 
without any respect to age, sex, or condition, 
and for no fault of their own, were turned out 
of the Sutherland estates in the early part of 
the present century. These things could not 
have been done under the old feudal system. 
Under that system the vassal, in return for his 
services, had lands allotted to him. If the lord 
had rights, they involved some correspond- 
ing duties to the slave ; but now the English 
land-holder is more than a feudal lord, while 
the poor have no feudal rights. The extinc- 



14 



tion of small free-holders, and the absorption 
of the lands by a few, introduced pauperism, 
which has steadily grown with the growth of 
large estates. The poor have thus been driven 
into the towns, and compelled to live in hovels, 
dens, and garrets, just as the same consequences 
followed in republican Rome when the patri- 
cians seized the lands of the small free-holders 
and drove their occupants into the capital. 

Under the feudal system the lands supported 
the poor and defrayed all the expenses of the 
State; but now, while land in England is con- 
stantly rising in value, and its tillage is so 
greatly aided by steam-plows, threshing-ma- 
chines, reapers, improved live stock, and in- 
creased knowledge of the capabilities of the 
soil, the land-owner escapes the burdens of 
taxation, and imposes them upon the poor, 
because he is the maker of the -laws. This is 
a sad picture, and it forcibly illustrates what 
the Duke of Argyle says of the antagonism 
between natural law and legislation. No one 
can fail to agree with him when he says that 
this antagonism "must be eliminated if legis- 
lation is ever to be attended with permanent 
success;" nor can any thoughtful Englishman 
disregard his warning when he declares that 
"institutions upheld and cherished against 
justice, and humanity, and conscience, have 
yielded only to the scourge of war." The 
salvation of England lies in the complete over- 
J^row of her system of landed property, which 
has it^^j ze( j i aDor as we ^ as i^ft^ anc [ [ n 

the restoratiou to the poor of their rightful 
inheritance in the soii.^Tnis would solve the 
problem of her pauper labor, and open the 
way to the solution of every other vital ques- 
tion. By diversifying the pursuits of her peo- 
ple, and giving homes to multitudes who are 
dragging out wretched lives under her factory 
system, or driven into her alms-houses and 
prisons, it would radically reconstruct the 
whole fabric of her social life. A disenthralled 
country would bear witness to the saying of 
■St. Pierre, that "it is not upon the face of 
vast dominions, bat in the bosom of industry, 
that the Father of mankind pours out the pre- 
cious fruits of the earth." 

But is the resemblance of our own country 
to England so faint as to awaken no concern 
for our future? Have we not borrowed from 
her very many of her feudalistic ideas and 
practices? Are we not following in her track 



"with a step as steady as time?" Our coun- 
try, indeed, is relatively new ; but for that very 
reason ideas and systems, whether wholesome 
or vicious, ripen swiftly in this age of mar- 
velous activities. Let me take the State of 
California as an example. She is cursed by 
a system of Spanish grants, covering her 
best lands, and handing them over in great 
bodies to individual monopolists; and this 
evil is greatly aggravated by the absorption 
into these monopolies of large tracts of Gov- 
ernment lands contiguous to them, through 
the shocking maladministration of Federal 
and State officials. Then there are hundreds 
of thousands of acres of Government lands 
bought by a few speculators, largely with col- 
lege and Indian scrip at low rates, and thus 
held back from the landless poor, save up< 
such terms as these speculators may see fit 
exact. 

Besides all this, hundreds of thousands c 
acres have passed into the custody of the Stat 
and thence into the clutches of monopolist 
through a monstrous perversion of the swam 
land acts of Congress, as already shown ; thi 
inflicting upon the country and our pione* 
settlers a stupendous wrong. The monopo 
of California lands by her railroad corp 
rations must not be omitted from this s* 
inventory, nor should it be forgotten that tl 
power of this organized landlordism mu 
inevitably exert a shaping influence over In 
judiciary, whose rulings have so often bee . 
most unfriendly to the poor. If to all this y 
add that the great land-holders of the Stat 
the Bank of California, her steamship comp; 
nies, and her railroad and mining corpor: 
tions, find it to their interest to stand by one 
another, and are to a considerable extent in- 
terested in common in the business of each 
other, we shall readily see that the maxim 
that "capital owns labor" has a tolerably 
fair prospect of being verified in that State. 
To a very alarming extent the capital of the 
State holds the labor of the State in its' power ; 
and that it should seek still further to starve 
and degrade labor by coolie importations is 
the most natural thing conceivable. It wants 
a base and background for its growing dom- 
ination, and longs to liken our country more 
and more to those of the Old World, in which 
not one man in five hundred is a land-owner, 
and "wages slavery" bears almost as griev- 



15 



ously upon the poor as chattel slavery once did 
upon its victims in the South. 

The coolie traffic has its genesis in the aggre- 
gation of capital in the hands of a few men, 
and especially in the monopoly of the soil; but 
while it should be prohibited by strong statutes, 
the real remedy for it must be sought in the 
removal of the causes which produce it. We 
must go to the root of the matter. I have 
spoken of California ; but land monopoly in 
other States has become almost equally alarm- 
ing. In all of them the spirit of monopoly is 
rampant, while the Government, putting on the 
temper of the times, has become its representa- 
tive and most powerful auxiliary. Feudal- 
ism, it is true, in its primitive form, has no 
existence among us ; but our great and rapidly 
multiplying corporations threaten us with a 
more fearful feudalization than that which 
cursed England five centuries ago. It brings 
the laboring classes more and more within its 
power, creating a subdued and subordinated 
class of proletariats like the Chinese, or an 
aggressive and embittered one like the English 
working people. The motives for cultivating 
the soil here in large tracts, and according 
to the principles of scientific agriculture, are 
quite as string as in any other country, while 
the effort to capitalize our lands as naturally 
involves the spirit of association, through which 
a few men of administrative talent constantly 
enlarge their estates, and drive the poorer and 
less provident classes to the wall. 

The effect of labor-saving machinery and 
steam upon the increase of production and the 
concentration of capital must be quite as potent 
here as in the countries of Europe in subject- 
ing the laboring masses to the cunning and 
cupidity of the "captains of industry," as they 
are sometimes styled, who control our rail- 
roads, telegrapns, banking institutions, and 
land grants, being the monopolizers of trans- 
portation and controllers of credit and ex- 
change. These men are not only the captains 
of industry, but, as I have shown, the cap- 
tains of legislation also; and their dominat- 
ing idea is legislation for property primarily, 
and for man secondarily. They dictate our 
laws from the lobby, suborn the judiciary 
into their service, and poison the fountains 
of public opinion. Under their sway wealth 
is more and more centralized, and the very 



life of our free system of government is threat- 
ened. 

The remedy for these evils, Mr. Speaker, is 
to be found in the thorough reconstruction of 
our land policy. This is the question of ques- 
tions. It underlies every other, and no party 
deserves to live that will not face it. The 
questions of the tariff, of finance, of internal 
taxation, of civil service reform, and of national 
education are simply side issues. The just 
solution of all of them will be comparatively 
easy, if aided by a wise settlement of the land 
question. The labor movement itself will 
prove an unmeaning wrangle, if it does not 
plant itself upon this as its central idea, and 
press its demands for other reforms through 
its adjustment. In pointing out the evils of 
our present policy I have indicated some of 
the reforms which these evils make immedi- 
ately necessary ; but we have gone so far in 
the direction of feudalism, and are still drift- 
ing toward it at so fearful a rate, that the right 
of private property in land may itself ere long 
have to be reconsidered. This right, in its 
unlimited sense, is disowned by three fourths 
of the human race, including the ablest think- 
ers of the present generation. It is at war 
with the great primal truths of the Declara- 
tion of Independence, and can no more be 
defended than the absolute right of private 
property in the sunlight and the air. I do not 
propose, or even suggest, any scheme of agra- 
rianism ; but that this asserted right, accord- 
ing to some just method yet +° l»e applied, 
should be subordinated to the rights of man 
and the public good is as true as any of our 
fundamental political maxims. 

Sir, this question reaches down to the very 
bed-rock of democracy; for if a few individ- 
uals or chartered corporations may absolutely 
own millions of acres, they may own the whole 
of a State, or a continent, and thus practically 
enslave its people. The unrestricted monopoly 
of the soil thus logically justifies a land-own- 
ing despotism, and is just as repugnant to re- 
publican government as slavery is to freedom. 
The landholders of a country govern it, and 
therefore the struggle for equal rights, whether 
in this country or in Europe, must resolutely 
uphold the natural right of the people to an 
inheritance in the soil. Thus only can they 
most certainly work out the overthrow of every 



16 



form of aristocratic and dynastic rule, and in- 
stitute a real democracy in their stead. Every 
household is a little commonwealth, and the 
aggregate of these makes the nation. The 
family is the peculiar institution of the race, 
the most blessed creation of God; and nations 
are prosperous and strong in tlie exact pro- 
portion in which it is protected and cherished. 
It is the foundation of society, the parent and 
master of the State. The home embodies all 
that is best in our civilization, all that is most 
precious and sacred in the idea of country, of 
liberty, and of life. To guard and foster it 
should be the grand purpose of our laws ; and 
to fail in this duty, or to throw obstacles in the 



way of the multiplication and security o 
ordered homes, is to strike at the life t 
institutions. 

The land question then, I repeat, is t < 
living issue and overshadowing quest : 
American politics. No other proble 
down so deep, or lies so near the hear 
people. Even the grand cause of v -. 
enfranchisement is fairly included in it, 
far as the ballot is powerless to save i 
hands of landless citizens ; while thj 
must find its chief support in the la 
masses whose battle cry is "homes f 
and who will welcome the heart and 1 | 
woman as their natural and most powerfi i 







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